There was an article in our paper this morning, saying even green thumb garden masters have been challenged by difficult growing conditions this year, and novice gardeners may become discouraged.

On the bright side, nothing has died in my garden again this month. For Garden Blogger's Death Day, I will give you what I have purposely killed (removed).

A lovely volunteer yellow crookneck squash was mercilessly uprooted. It had to be done. If you've ever grown them, you know how humongous they can get. I had three of them volunteer this year, and this one was between me and the tomatoes behind the shed.

Now the area is cleared, so I can get to the tomatoes. If I can find them in this jungle. And if they ever ripen. I did pick a handful of cherry tomatoes from the unknown variety on the left. They had come from a packet of Angora Super Sweet seeds, but have an entirely different leaf and color. The flavor was really quite good, although I have yet to eat a truly sweet tomato this year.

Then all of the borage was pulled. I let it volunteer this spring, as the bees love it. However, the bees have now forsaken my garden and flown on to greener pastures, and the borage was threatening to consume the entire northeast corner of the garden.

These cherry tomatoes were drastically pruned. I'll still need a ladder to pick the top ones, but I cut back a lot of the side growth as it was getting so heavy the vines were breaking.

Sometimes when I'm pruning I get carried away. There was an occasional "oops".

Another determinate will have to be cut back a bit today, as the rain really flopped it over. This one, second bucket from the left, was supposed to be a Cherokee Purple, but it's fruiting (and tasting) like an Early Girl, with similar bright red tomatoes. I didn't plant Early Girls this year.

There are baby carrots beneath the indeterminates that must be allowed some sunlight to grow.

Three tomato plants were composted. Two of them were Gartenperle, which was a pretty little container plant, absolutely loaded with the worst tasting tomatoes I have ever tasted. The third was the Minigold, which was in a pot that was smack dab in the middle of the butternut squash patch, and impossible to pick. I have a second Minigold, and that is just plenty for all the tiny yellow tomatoes we might want to eat.

The corn was a failure this year. I really do blame the seed/variety, as it was grown both in a protected semi-shade area and in the open in full sun, with the exact same results. Both areas were well fertilized and amended with compost, both areas got sufficient water, and the spacing of the plants, at 12", should have been sufficient. I refuse to take the blame for their failure to produce a decent crop.

Mr. Granny actually went into the garden and helped pull the corn stalks from the large barrel containers and the center of the squash patch, then he helped me move the container of cosmos from the garden to an area next to the shed. This container of cosmos is taller than I am, and wider across too! I love the flowers, but it has been very stingy with its blossoms.

With the cosmos moved, I can now see the zinnias and marigolds that were on the other side of the bed, and hidden by them.

The weather has been hot, in the high 90s to low 100s. It was predicted at 90-96 for the next seven days, but it's 71F and raining and thundering today, so we're getting some unexpected relief from the heat. It thunder-boomed and poured down rain intermittently all night. Of course, I had just given the garden a good soaking yesterday.

Birds have ravaged the garden again. My fall planting of beets was looking really good until the quail came through and took them right down to the ground. The sparrows did the same with the lettuce seedlings I'd set out a couple weeks ago, so I just pulled up everything from the lettuce beds and replanted.

I used seedlings in the first bed, then installed plastic netting around them for protection. They took right off, and are doing very well under their shade structure. It seems odd to be on lettuce hiatus for now, after all I have picked this year.

The second lettuce bed was planted with seeds of spinach, carrots and lettuce. I'll be covering that structure with protective plastic netting too. Both beds will be easy to cover with plastic when the weather turns cold, hopefully extending the season.

Geez Granny, your tomato plants look so healthy and are so big! It's amazing that you have only harvested 99 oz so far this year. My plants are producing quite well. But, they are not nearly as big as yours and a lot of the leaves are turning yellow. I had to pull one plant this week. I think that they are only going to last another month. Mine will be done and yours will be producing like crazy.

I see you started your fall planting! I have to wait until we get some rain tomorrow to plant some fall crops. It's been so dry here.

It was a strange summer. So hot! I felt a little discouraged by our dismal results, but I'm not going to give up, it's too much fun. I thought we'd be harvest more veggies than we can eat, but the heat has stopped that in it's tracks. We had very bad crop of radishes, beets, and potatoes. Oh well.

I am so impressed by your large tomato plants granny! Impressive! What do you put in those containers? I know you have it bottomless, but is it magic? LOL. My plants are no where near that size and they get lots of fun sun.

Granny, I'm so sorry things didn't go completely well for you, but take comfort in knowing it was the same for us all. I've said before that if this was my first year gardening I would have been discouraged...inspite of the zucchini craze of June, which I'm not complaining about. I think it was just an icky year for everyone with the heat and lack of rain. Luckily, we can start the fall gardens and the summer will come again.

Your tomatoes will ripen, even if they have to do so indoors. Not ideal, but still doable.

Shawn Ann, it's a good thing I didn't want to make pickles this year! I do need tomatoes for a ton of salsa.

********Robin, I kept all the indeterminates and planted the determinates next door at Pats. Wouldn't you know, she's had ripe tomatoes all week! Next year I may not be so generous ;-)

********Meemsnyc, I put half compost and half peat in the buckets, mixed with either perlite or vermiculite (depending on what I have on hand). In each planting hole I work in a couple of handfuls of the following, that I've pulverized to a powder in a coffee bean grinder: egg shells, old calcium tablets, a few aspirin and some multi-vitamins with minerals. I also work a handful of 10-10-10 fertilizer into the hole. I don't know if all that stuff helps, but the calcium tablets and vitamins have passed their expiration dates, so I figured why not. I still have lots of them left for next year ;-)

********Ribbit, I exceeded last year's entire crop in lettuce, cabbage, spinach...most of the spring crops. I'm still finding diseased peppers, so that crop will be disappointing.

********

Daphne, I'm really taking a chance on some of mine, with this heat. I'll probably have to replant in a couple of weeks. The stuff under the shade structures should be OK, though.

********Mr. H., I think we killed the cosmos. By this afternoon, they were drooping badly. The roots had grown out the bottom of the container, and I heard that rrriiiiip sound when we lifted it, so we probably shocked it to death. Next year I'll know to grow them where they can grow tall. I was thinking I'd grown them in containers before, and had pretty flowers a foot or so tall. Now I remember...they were anemones!

The tomatoes are tied to 8' stakes, and have grown over the tops. Plus, they're in a 1' high raised bed. Good thing I have a light weight aluminum ladder!

Granny, you should try to shoot those quail. They're so good fried...I still have my squirrel problem. :-( I can tell this year's weather has caused problems for you, because the harvest is much smaller than last year.

Hi Granny! I'm so impressed that nothing keeled over and died in your garden this summer. I've read so many horror stories from summer gardens this summer. It's reading like a slasher movie for gardeners these days...

I was just writing to Ribbit that my slogan for my summer garden is "Focus on Fall" - LOL. I know I can usually pull off a fall garden, but I've yet to pull off a summer garden.

I thought I was the only one having a bad year. My cucumbers are doing little to nothing this year. I'm still only getting all female or all male blooms on my zucchini and summer squash. The weather here had been in the low 70's for the past two weeks. July and Aug are normally our hottest months. Not this year. Well there is always next season :-)

EG, my neighbor would shoot me if I shot the quail! She stacks brush in her yard for their habitat, and feeds them. I love the quail, but I don't love the way they've eaten my garden this year.

********Kate, our weather went straight from too cold to too hot. It was too cold for summer crops to blossom, then so hot they blossomed and dropped them. Fungal disease is plaguing my peppers, we had so much rain this spring. I still have more food than we can eat, but not like last year.

********Liisa, my zucchini is actually doing better than ever for me! It's the tomatoes that really are slow. I need salsa! I only planted two containers of cucumbers this year, because three was overkill last year. Now the two are basically doing nothing, compared to last year.

My early tomatoes are doing good but the rest of the tomato patch is taking their sweet time in setting fruits. Cucumbers were hard to get started this year (lots of early losses) but now are zooming along - no production yet though and the lack of bees is getting me concerned about whether they will produce at all.

I have some lettuce I would love to share with you. I just cannot keep up with it this year.

Kitsap, it seemed odd going to the store for lettuce for the rabbit today! I really should have left the Red Sails and the Romaine in the garden for further harvests, but I hate to plant around three or four plants, so opted to pull them and start fresh. I do still have a few leaves of Romaine left, but I'm not sharing them with Cookie ;-)

Anyway, I was wondering what you put our first frost date as in the Mid-Columbia (I'm in Kennewick)? This is my 1st year planting a fall garden and the internet dates range by almost a month! Hoping your experience has led you to a good average date. Thanks!

*********Stefaneener, I'm sure all the tomatoes will ripen at once, and I'll be complaining about that, LOL!

********Sheena, hello neighbor!

I figure on October 15th. for the first killing frost, which will take out the tomatoes, beans, squash, etc. The lettuce, spinach, chard, root crops, etc., will survive it, and then we'll probably have a few weeks of "Indian summer". Last year the first killing frost came on the 10th. of October.

Thank you! I'm so happy that I found your blog this past spring, I had been searching for a gardening blog for our region and your wisdom and wit have kept me coming back. I'm a young mom (can I still say that now that I'm 30?) just starting out gardening and I'm really enjoying it!

Granny, do you do crop rotations? If you do, what do you with all your tomato buckets from year to year? Do you plant something else in them next year, or do you just recycle them (maybe with some more soil amendments?) for next year's tomatoes? These are some of the random questions that keep this newbie gardener up at nights!

Thyme2, I pull the vines and dispose of them (I don't compost them), then I empty any soil that is left in the buckets into an area of the garden where I will not be growing tomatoes, peppers, etc. Most of the soil sticks to the tomato roots, so there really isn't a lot left to empty. Then I hose the buckets out and stack them in the shed for the winter. In the spring, I fill a bathtub with hot soapy water, and pour in a couple of cups of Purex, and scrub the buckets, letting them soak in the bleach for a while. Rinse, dry and put back into the garden. I start with fresh compost, peat moss and perlite or vermiculite for the new crop, with other stuff (pulverized egg shells, fertilizer, etc.).

Thyme2, I do that with all my containers. I also carry a container of bleach water to the garden when I prune the tomatoes, and dip the clippers into it between plants. That way I'm not spreading possible diseases from one to another.

Thank you Granny! I've been really lax about possible cross contamination between my plants in the garden (even when I'm dealing with visible diseases like powdery mildew), but I guess I need to be more careful about that. I haven't disinfected anything, aside from washing my hands when I come back in the house, but I know that doesn't do anything to help my plants.

Thyme2, I'm rather paranoid about putting anything that looks like it might be sickly or diseased into my compost. My bin just doesn't heat up enough to kill anything, so those plants go to the landfill.